Our Spl Correspondent
NEW DELHI: The Union Minister for DoNER BK Handique has convened a meeting with the Union Minister for Civil Aviation Vayalar Ravi on Tuesday on the suspended copter services to Arunachal Pradesh and rest of the north-eastern region. Handique has also sought the Prime Minister’s intervention to sort out the problems being faced by the people in the region which lacks dependable transport and communication links. Handique has demanded that pending resumption of dependable copter services in the region, commercial airlines should be directed to have regular flights every day to Lilabari in Assam which is the nearest air point for the Himalayan states. The flights should link Kolkata-Guwahati-Diburgarh /Tezpur with Lilabari which is only 70 km from Itanagar and accessible from other points of Assam. Otherwise people even from within the State have to travel for hours ranging from a day to day and a half even to reach the State capital, the Minister said. He had also called all aviation heads including that of Pawan Hans to the meeting. The Minister was camping in Arunachal Pradesh for days together following the tragic chopper crash killing Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu and four others.
